No Official Knowledge

The mighty and mightily successful IKEA empire has an unfortunate skeleton in its closet. But then, so many were tainted by just such unfortunate alliances. And the madness that swept much of Europe under the onslaught of Nazi Germany caught up many with sympathetic ties to fascism. A former head of the United Nations, for example, and a sitting Pope even if tangentially.

Here is a highly respected and extremely wealthy entrepreneur whose product label is known worldwide. Suddenly brought low as far as public esteem might reflect the revelation of his repugnant connection to slave labour under another utterly repugnant ideology: State Communism. Which demonstrated many of the anti-humane characteristics of Nazi ideology.

"Our labour team lived on the upper floor of the factory with the windows covered. The machines were on the lower floor, and you had little rest. On the factory floor you had no proper seating, no ear protection, no gloves. Conditions were even more primitive there than in the rest of the German Democratic Republic. It was slave labour." Hans Otto Klare, former resident of Waldheim prison, East Germany

The factory? Why, an IKEA installation in Waldheim, East Germany. The German Democratic Republic incarcerated large numbers of political prisoners roughly equivalent to 20% of the prison population. IKEA's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, was quoted in a recently revealed Stasi file, that he had no official knowledge of the use of prison labour.

But IKEA under his entrepreneurial direction maintained fast ties in the 1970s with the East German government, installing a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which used political prisoners in the manufacture of sofas, according to WDR, a German television station. An IKEA spokesperson commented that business practises had changed over the past 25 years.

A statement, however, issued later by IKEA while emphasizing it had no idea that prison labour was used in its factory, it was sorry if it had occurred. As for the fascist connection to the communist connection; in 1942 a young Ingvar Kamprad had joined Sweden's pro-fascist New Swedish Movement.